The US government laboratory in Los Altos is saying they will have nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed that will be able to power 20,000 homes within five years. The mini reactors will

1. be factory-sealed
2. contain no weapons-grade material
3. have no moving parts
4. be nearly impossible to steal
5. be encased in concrete and buried underground.

The technology is licensed to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which will start working on the first firm orders within five years. Hyperion says, “Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world for a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $2,500 per home.”

The first 100 firm orders have come from the oil and electricity industries for which they will set up three factories to produce 4,000 plants between 2013 and 2023. The first confirmed order is from TES, a Czech infrastructure company specializing in water plants and power plants. ‘

The reactors, only a few meters in diameter, will be delivered by truck and buried underground. They need refueling every 7 to 10 years. The 50-year-old design has proved safe even for students to use. No countries are expected to object to plants on their territory.

“You could never have a Chernobyl-type event – there are no moving parts.” Never! Wrong word.

Meanwhile, Toshiba has been testing 200KW reactors measuring roughly six metres by two meters to fuel smaller numbers of homes for longer or that could power a single building for up to 40 years.

Source: Guardian (Image courtesy of philippe leroyer)

If you're new here and you like our articles, how about subscribing free for our updates via RSS feed.

Planetary geologists are guessing that valleys on Mars came from gushes of water resulting from past rainfall or groundwater springs. Theorize, believe, speculate … they all have the same meaning when it comes right down to it. Scientists so much want to believe that life, as we know it, existed elsewhere that they will jump to any conclusion.

And jump they do I think.

They have no evidence. They only believe. What’s the difference between believing conditions existed for life as we know it despite having no concrete evidence and believing, say that the universe, as we know it, is the product of some all powerful designer? Both are guesses, no?

I hope we never need to find another home far away from the home where we live now. I don’t anticipate that happening in my lifetime either. But, if we don’t become better stewards of this planet with which we have been entrusted, we may be doing more than wishing life could be sustained on Mars, we may be desperately hoping it can.

What do you think?

source

“I want my mommy!”

“Doesn’t anybody love us?”

“We’re hungry!”

“I need burping!”

“Well, at least we have each other.”

“Alright guys! Let’s stick together.”

I guess I am naive enough to think that only humans can be so heartless as to turn away their own children. Not so. A white lion in Schloss-Holte Stukenbrock of Germany rejected her three cubs. What’s up with that? Let me have the little critters. Cute as can be, and whoever thought to put them on a black sheet knew what they were doing when these pix.

So, I wonder aloud here again about the whole zoo thing. Does having these little fellows in a zoo and having humans all around and such have anything to do with the momma lion turning them away? I love animals. Let’s put them back in their natural habitat. And if people want to study them…okay what’s to study. Leave them alone.

What do you think?

source